Stuffed Peppers - got creative

[polarsusd81]

So I was craving some stuffed peppers so off to the www's to find a recipe I went. I looked at dozens of recipes and all seemed to use ground beef and rice for the stuffing and the photos people posted up looked like cat food. I figured I gotta be able to do better than that. So here is what I did.

Ingredients:

2 Bell Peppers (I used one yellow and one orange)

2 Red Fresno Peppers

2 Garlic Cloves

4 Green Onions

1/2 White Onion

1/4 Slab of Bacon

3/4 - 1 Cup Croutons (Herb variety)

2 Tbsp E.V.O.O.

1 round slice Provolone Cheese (cut into 1/4's)

1/3 Cup Mozzarella Cheese

Prep:

1. Slice up the bacon into small pieces and get them in a medium fry pan over med.-med. low heat.

2. Cut tops off of peppers and remove the seeds. Bring a large pot of water to a boil to blanch your peppers, blanch them 3-4 minutes depending the desired texture at finish. Remove peppers from boiling water and place into ice water until stuffing mix is ready.

3. Finely chop the Fresno Peppers, Garlic, Green and White Onion.

4. Remove bacon from fry pan and put into medium mixing bowl, transfer the chopped veggies into the fry pan and saute for 5-8 minutes until they start to soften. Add a bit of salt to taste.

5. Combine sauted veggies and croutons with bacon in mixing bowl. Mix together and then drizzle olive oil over the stuffing mixture.

6. Remove peppers from ice water and position in a glass baking dish. Add just a light amount of salt to the inside of the peppers. Fill each with about 1" of stuffing and place one of the provolone quarters on top. Add more stuffing and another layer of provolone. Add more stuffing and top with mozzarella cheese. If you have any stuffing mix left over, place it right on top.

7. Bake in the oven at 375 for 30-45 minutes or just until the cheese starts to turn golden brown on top.

They came out amazing last night and served them with pork chops and an ice cold beer. I only made two but the recipe could easily be adjusted for serving more. They almost looked too good to eat. You will certainly have a bit of heat with these, but nothing worse than medium salsa. The next time I make them, I will probably replace the white onion with two or three shallots to see what that does for them.

If you are sick of the same old stuffed peppers, give these a shot and let me know what you think.

[irishjigs]

I might try this as a side dish for V-Day night! Sounds great, nicely done!

[Jim Uran]

sounds darn good.

[polarsusd81]

It was served as the side to some nice juicy pork chops for the girlfriend and myself last night. She is not a fan of the typical stuffing mixtures so I wanted to try something different. She loved em. They look pretty darn cool too.

[so haaad]

I bet you could also try this with ground venison.

[Finns]

No pics! Sounds great.

[LakeDocktor]

Tom, do you crush the croutons or leave them whole?

[polarsusd81]

I left them whole. When I first added them to the veggie and bacon mix, they were still dry. That is why I added the olive oil. I suppose crushed would work also, maybe next time I will try that way.

[Dark Cloud]

Tom - I made these tonight and they were awesome! Of course the chef in me had to make some mods, but thats what cooking is all about.

I cut back on the bacon a tad and added some hot sausage. I took one link and cut the meat out of the caseing, then browned it up and chopped it up a tad.

I also used a little crumbly blue cheese instead of the mozzerella.

They were a big hit!

I love traditional stuffed peppers - ground meat, rice, red sauce but this was a nice twist and there are so many diff options for the stuffing...

[polarsusd81]

Looks pretty dang good Jay. I would love to do sausage in them myself, but my girlfriend doesn't like it so the nod was for bacon. If I make them for more people some time I will probably add some sausage as well. Blue Cheese would be a pretty good option as well. Thanks for the pic.

[Tom Linderholm]

Looking good gentlemen. Thanks for sharing!